Disposable cutlery, for example, plastic spoons, forks, knives and “sporks,” (e.g., a combination of a spoon and a fork), are frequently used in informal restaurant settings and are provided for use with “take out” restaurant food. To ensure that this cutlery is provided in a hygienic form, it is often purchased by a restaurant or other facility pre-sealed in a pouch. A napkin and condiments i.e., salt and pepper, may be included in the pouch. Such pouches are generally more expensive than the individual utensils due to the processing and materials necessary to form the pouches. Also, these pouches may provide more cutlery or condiments than the user needs and, as such, may be wasteful.
An alternative to such prepared pouches is the presentation of cutlery for use in an unwrapped form, for example, in a bin or cup. As would be recognized, this allows the customer to select only the utensils desired. However, this form of dispensing can be considered by customers to be unsanitary and can indeed be unsanitary if a previous customer does not take a utensil she touched. This method of providing cutlery for use by a consumer can also be unsanitary if a restaurant worker does not conform to the recommended hygiene standards of using gloves when contacting utensils for use by a consumer. The unregulated dispensing of the cutlery in this form also permits the user to take more utensils than intended, thus resulting in less profit for the establishment.
In view of the above problems with existing methods of providing disposable cutlery for use, there would appear to be a need for a method to provide disposable cutlery to a customer in a hygienic, economical and non-wasteful manner. To this end, there have been proposed various designs for cutlery dispensers that would provide disposable cutlery to a consumer in a hygienic and economical manner, however, cutlery dispensers have not gained widespread adoption. It is believed that prior art cutlery dispenser designs have not been widely used because of inefficient and uneconomical designs.
In particular, disposable cutlery designs typically comprise an external ridge or rim extending around the outer periphery of the handle with a thin web joined to medial portions of the external ridge or rim and extending between the piece. Such a configuration provides a relatively rigid, but low cost, utensil due to the fact that the polymer material is maximized on the utensil where it will most efficiently impart increased rigidity. The inventors herein have found that when disposable cutlery having this typical design is stacked, interactions between these ridges can make it difficult for one piece of cutlery to slide relative to another. The cutlery then becomes locked at the ridge which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to dispense the cutlery. This locking can be exacerbated when two pieces of cutlery are skewed and/or interlocked while being weighted down by several dozen to possibly even 150 or more pieces of cutlery that is stacked above these two pieces of cutlery. Such interlocking can interfere with or wholly prevent efficient dispensing.
Further, some disposable spoon designs incorporate deeper ribbing at the junction between the food contact portion and the handle. This ribbing is included in order to impart extra strength to the relatively thin neck area. Such design features have been found by the inventors herein to typically prevent a stack of spoons from stacking efficiently; rather, the cutlery will stack in a “fanned” orientation which further reduces the ability to dispense the cutlery using prior art designs. It is believed by the inventors herein that such stacking difficulties would also be present with sporks.
A wide variety of dispensers have been previously used for the dispensing of products having a generally rounded shape overall such as, for example, soda straws, matches, coffee stirs and toothpicks. Such dispensers for overall rounded shapes are typified by the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,202,891; 4,489,854; 3,587,922; 3,472,421; 3,313,452; 3,263,860; 2,239,196; 2,207,528; 1,675,510; 1,504,098; 1,355,583; 999,837; 925,485; and 592,105. The disclosures of each of the foregoing patents are incorporated herein in their entireties by this reference.
In contrast, dispensers for cutlery proposed by the prior art are usually considerably more complex than the designs illustrated in the referenced patents. In particular, the more complex design features of disposable cutlery (such as the ridges and non-uniform shapes discussed previously) have not been found to allow reliable and consistent dispensing using prior art designs. In general, many prior art cutlery dispenser designs are believed to have incorporated cartridge-type systems wherein the cutlery was pre-loaded into a holder i.e., the cartridge, prior to shipment to the end user. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,134,519 and 6,336,568 (incorporated by reference herein) disclose cutlery dispensers using cartridges. It is believed by the inventors herein that the cartridge was required in order to ensure that the cutlery would remain tightly stacked during dispensing. As would be recognized, use of such a cartridge will assist in providing hygienic dispensing, but this design incorporates an expensive cartridge which must be disposed of when emptied. Further, this design cannot be filled easily by the end-user and will need to be emptied fully before replacing the cartridge with a new one. Alternatively, to ensure that the dispenser does not become empty during inopportune times (such as during lunch rush hour in a restaurant), the cartridge might be replaced prior to its being fully empty. The former was problematic because the dispenser can run out of cutlery and frustrate the customer. The latter was problematic because the partially full cartridge would be emptied before all of the cutlery pieces were used. Regardless of when the cartridge might be re-filled, the use of a cartridge system can be expensive and wasteful and likely would substantially increase the cost of supplying disposable cutlery to an end user.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,832,694 (incorporated by reference herein), a cutlery dispenser is illustrated in which, upon dispensing, the lowermost item of cutlery in the stack slides longitudinally and downwardly with respect to the other items in the stack and thus can be removed without lifting the stack above it by a significant distance. Such an arrangement requires relatively minimal dispensing force and promotes easy and reliable dispensing. While the '694 patent design does not include an expensive and wasteful cartridge, it nonetheless requires the utensils to be individually reloaded into the dispenser. Such reloading is time consuming (which increases labor costs for the establishment) and, if incorrectly loaded, the dispenser could be prone to jamming Also, if the person loading the dispenser has not washed her hands prior to loading, the utensils will become soiled or, worse, germ-ridden. Thus, the dispenser of the '694 patent does not readily provide an economical and hygienic cutlery dispenser.
Other cutlery dispensers in the prior art are not designed for disposable cutlery and therefore are not suitable to provide the desired features. Such non-disposable cutlery dispensers are exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,188,573, 2,268,596 and 3,132,765, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein in their entireties by this reference.
In view of the above, it is apparent that there is a need for a device to dispense disposable cutlery in a hygienic, economical and non-wasteful manner. Still further, it would be desirable to provide a method to arrange disposable cutlery to allow quick and economical loading of cutlery in a cutlery dispenser for use. Yet further, it would be desirable to provide disposable cutlery with design features that facilitate the stacking and dispensing of cutlery in a cutlery dispenser. The present invention accomplishes these objectives.